Writing a College Paper Part IV: the REALLY Rough Draft

Welcome to part four of my seven part series! So far we've talked about the initial and extended outline, as well as how to do some research, so today let's talk about your first draft. 

This is probably going to be the shortest post in this series because it's so extremely simple. 

When sitting down to write your first draft the first thing you should do is copy and paste your extended outline into a new document. Once you do that take your bullet points and make them into cohesive sentences. You may be thinking that I'm completely oversimplifying it, but you're overthinking it. Honestly you just have to turn your bullet points into separate sentences. Don't worry about if the sentences sound good together just make them into sentences. That's step one. 

Step two is to add conclusion sentences. Read over your choppy paragraphs and add a conclusion sentence that seems to summarize what you stated in your paragraph. 

Then you're done. 

Take a break. 

If you start revising your paper now, at this stage, you'll get overwhelmed. That's the worst thing that can happen when writing a big paper. Keeping your focus is what's going to turn your ideas into amazing writing and ultimately an amazing grade. So close your laptop, start other homework, and revise your paper later. 

xoxo

AME